Pichai's "could be" stance on the issue is milquetoast, especially in comparison to the multi-paragraph line in the sand that Apple drew on Tuesday. Though many tech companies—Google, Microsoft, and Apple included—have all spoken out against encryption backdoors in the past, most have become quieter about it in the wake of the San Bernardino attacks.

Further Reading

It's also worth noting that Google doesn't have nearly as much control over the Android ecosystem as Apple does over the iPhone. Phone makers and mobile network operators all have their fingerprints on the Android phones they sell, and AT&T has already said that it has no interest in fighting the government over encryption.

Google is doing the right thing by mandating mandatory storage encryption on new devices that meet its hardware requirements, but any one of those other companies could choose to implement its own backdoor and compromise user data in other ways.

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Andrew Cunningham
Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites